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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22502107">Just Ask</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/crepesamillion/pseuds/crepesamillion'>crepesamillion</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Don't Starve (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Graphic Smut, Suggestive Themes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 18:01:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,656</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22502107</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/crepesamillion/pseuds/crepesamillion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Wilson never could take a hint. Or maybe he just didn't want to.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Wes/Wilson (Don't Starve)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>101</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Just Ask</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is, overall, a lighthearted jab at how learning each other's love languages isn't always easy. What one person thinks is their biggest declaration of love might be a big meh to the other person if they don't know how much it really means and I think that's an interesting thing to look at!</p><p>While it's my best attempt at being tactful, there is a content warning for discussion/implication of dubious consent in the past, manipulation within a relationship, and emotional trauma. (Not between Wilson and Wes, they're both just dumb and well-meaning but learn how to work together better.)</p><p>Consent is sexy no matter how long you've been together or how well you think you know each other.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In Wes’s opinion, living on a mountaintop just a few feet under the soggy gray clouds and five miles away from the nearest town wasn’t ideal. Down the narrow dirt path to the drugstore was a long walk, and if it was for groceries or painkiller tonic it seemed to take twice as long. </p><p>There was never any company to invite for supper. Nobody to greet walking by in the morning. Not even a mailman.</p><p>Wes tended to nurse the loneliness in silence and stir his tea in the evenings while Wilson agonized over books and blueprints. It wasn’t that he was <em> unhappy. </em>It was only after sunset, when everything was chilly and washed out in gray like a photograph and Wilson was too busy to chat, that he had time to consider it. </p><p>Other times, he was glad that there was nobody around for miles.</p><p>Like during the rare occasions he managed to coax Wilson to bed an hour early, and not with intent of squeezing in extra sleep.</p><p>Because Wilson What’s-his-name Weston-Higgsbury was incredibly, enormously, overwhelmingly <em> loud. </em>Even with his nose mashed into the sheets and eight inches of lumpy mattress to muffle his cries.</p><p>He had the most noteworthy lungs of anyone Wes had ever known. And Wes didn’t think that just because his own ribs were a little indented and caged in his lungs quite cozily. On one ragged breath, Wilson could clip off about a dozen pitchy “oh”s one after another like rows of coupons from the paper and still have enough air left over to whimper like a cold puppy.</p><p>It was maybe a bit embarrassing, and more honestly a <em> lot </em>embarrassing. Wes had never advertised on any corners and was most certainly not an expert in terms of intimate pleasures. He wasn’t even French. But he could do nothing more than draw Wilson close beneath the covers and let his hands embark on a lazy search for his waistband, and Wilson would clamp the pillow over his head and brace himself as though his brains were in a tailspin already.</p><p>If Wes didn’t know better—and sometimes he wasn’t sure that he did—he would have thought it was all rather performative. He was no stranger to performances. Maybe that’s why Wilson’s behavior had a familiar tinge. A little too <em> much</em>, a little too loud, a little too exaggerated. Like how Wigfrid thrust her voice overboard from the middle of her chest and boomed it out with special enunciation on every syllable. Or how Wes emphasized every motion in his charades, sweeping and steady and polished to perfection.</p><p>It slowed things down between them. A lot. Which was why, in five years of being together, they’d gone from start to finish exactly two and a half times. The half counted because by some fluke, Wilson had hit his sloppy crescendo and left Wes hanging by a thread. </p><p>Sometimes it was fun to just tease and watch Wilson come undone faster than a skein of yarn in a box of kittens, but god. Wes was a grown man and tickles and pokes didn’t cut the mustard, if cutting meant getting off and mustard meant not mustard.</p><p>They’d tried much more than two and a half times, sure. Or rather, Wes tried. For all Wilson’s whines and wails, Wes wasn’t sure if Wilson even <em> could </em>be turned on.</p><p>And that was the weird part. It was somewhat contradictory. There were a lot of weird parts, but this was the culmination of weird parts. </p><p>Wrangle Wilson into bed, and he was worse than a Puritan virgin who considered a bare wrist or ankle obscene. One embrace, one caress, and it was over. He’d moan like he’d had an oyster dinner and was in the passenger seat of the Tin Lizzie rattling over a cobblestone road. He’d stuff his face into the pillow and moan Wes’s name as if he’d been given an audition script for a stag reel and by golly was he determined. He was down for the count—the end. </p><p>But anywhere else?</p><p>He was impervious. He was an utterly sexless being. If cardboard could walk and breathe, it would have been no different from Wilson Higgsbury. If romance itself kicked him in the softies he’d double over on the ground puking and blaming Maxwell for the offense, or Willow if she were within two county lines. If true love took him out to a candlelit dinner every night for a hundred years before yanking the rug from beneath him, he’d never see it coming. In fact, he didn’t know what coming meant.</p><p>Wes could spin him in a circle, nuzzle his hair, and heft him up as easily as a blushing newlywed before kissing black heart-shaped stickers all over his face. And Wilson would only laugh and ruffle Wes’s hair playfully, or if Wes was <em> tremendously </em>lucky, plant a kiss on his cheek that was as fast and dry as one popped onto the face of a prom date for a photo in front of Mormon parents.</p><p>Wes could catch him standing in the kitchen, chewing away at stale toast with a book spread on the counter in front of him, and take the chance to press against his back and loop his arms around his waist. He could hike him up, just enough to align the stitches between Wilson’s back pockets with the fly of his trousers, and crush against him until the seam of his pants tightened over the <em> perfect </em>spot. Then Wilson, with his heels dangling over the floor and his elbows propped on the countertop, would say through his toast, “Did you know that Tesla’s father wanted him to join the church instead of pursue the sciences?”</p><p>Wes could flatten him into the faded booger-green sofa cushions and snap those collar buttons loose to kiss Wilson’s neck as though Wilson were ice cream and it was ninety-eight degrees outside. He could fit his lips with leechlike accuracy right over the warm pulse that bumped beneath Wilson’s stubbly jaw to bring the skin between his teeth and rub it twenty times over with his tongue, only to nibble, suck, and soothe the sting with another dozen licks. </p><p>He could tug open another few buttons to unwrap the meager expanse of chest that Wilson always kept tightly out of reach, and before he could even plunge his hand into the shirt to rummage past the hair in search of the best spot to squeeze, Wilson would sit upright as though raised from the dead and blurt, “Geez, did I leave the Bunsen burner on?” And he’d dart away with his untucked shirttails dangling, leaving Wes to wonder if he even <em> had </em>a Bunsen burner. </p><p>They could be on the couch under the old faded quilt, legs tangled, listening to the radio crackle as rain fell in gray sheets outside. And even if Wes’s idle hand happened to wander beneath the quilt to the front of Wilson’s pants, and even if he happened to play with a button or two, and even if he happened to catch himself fondling around, Wilson would mumble a half-asleep “sorry,” and move his legs from Wes’s lap to give Wes room to get up if he wished—soft as fresh-from-the-oven sourdough bread the entire time.</p><p>Nothing—absolutely nothing—flustered Wilson outside of the bedroom. It was as though he didn’t have a clue. He tended to be clueless and maybe a little stupid, but if he could sit on Wes’s lap, crunching on an apple and reading a copy of <em> On the Origin of Species, </em>and not even hiccup when Wes’s hand closed over his thigh with his fingers more or less accidentally wedged between his legs—well. Maybe he was a lot stupid.</p><p>So what. It was far from apocalyptic. If Wilson just didn’t ever get aches in his trousers that made him need to tangle his hands in Wes’s hair and beg, was it really a big deal?</p><p>It wasn’t even that Wilson seemed uncomfortable or awkward with intimacy. Goodness, if that’d been the case, Wes would have reined himself in as though he were sitting in an office conference. It was easy enough to see when Wilson was anxious. Wes knew the signs. He’d seen them plenty of times. Like whenever the old fart Maxwell had slithered by. Wilson would wring his hands and twist his fingers together like sheets in the washtub and stiffen up and go eerie-quiet. </p><p>And, of course, if Wilson really didn’t <em> want </em>to be touched, he had no qualms about saying so. Wes knew that too. He’d also seen enough to be sure. Like when Maxwell’s gnarly old withered buzzard claw hand lit on Wilson’s shoulder. Or when Willow squealed and tackled Wilson in a hug as if she meant to squeeze his guts out either end like toothpaste from a brand new tube. Wilson would shove them away and tell them to mind their hands and leave him alone. He didn’t do that to Wes.</p><p>He never gave a sign that he was nervous or uneasy when Wes clutched him in a clinch or traced his thumbs over his back pockets. Any time Wes thought <em> maybe </em>there was flash of uncertainty in his eyes, he’d look again, double take, triple take, and never saw it again. And Wilson never wrung his hands or shoved him away.</p><p>He was just either conveniently distracted every single time Wes tried to tease him into the sheets, or he was just bare-bones honestly an idiot.</p><p>He just didn’t seem to realize that kissing with Wes’s tongue against his tonsils meant anything. Or that rolling on the couch with Wes’s hand Lewis-and-Clarking every inch below his waistband was intended to ignite a fiery need for something more. But even after a half hour of tangling with Wes, felt up until his butt was numb as a brick, hair protruding in bolts in every direction where it’d been mashed against the cushions, and lipstick smeared like bruises all over his face and chest, Wilson was just as ready to return to his desk and books with no need to continue.</p><p>Meanwhile, Wes was forced to retire to his room with a handkerchief and stiff legs and keep company with a couple fingers, or maybe three if he was particularly lonesome.</p><p>Maybe it was selfish. Was it? He’d never dream of <em> forcing </em>Wilson to do anything he didn’t want. Maybe he should’ve been completely content to relish in those kisses and grabs and been grateful that Wilson let him touch as freely as he did. </p><p>But even with that thought, Wes couldn’t squelch the deeply buried wish that Wilson would, for once, engage instead of accept.</p><p>As he sat on the couch, legs folded to the side, elbow on the armrest, he watched Wilson. He hunched over his desk, riffling through a stack of papers. The light from the oil lamp wavered slow and lazy, turning all the gray in Wilson’s hair a brilliant gold. He rested his chin in one hand, his eyes tracking over the print on a weathered page. The blue shadows deepened every wrinkle on his face. As he read, his mouth moved in silent sync with the words. Wes caught the occasional “vacuum tubing” or “Tesla coil.”</p><p>Wes traced his tongue along his lip as he watched. Wilson rubbed the crook of his finger over his chin, skritching his shadow of a beard, lost in contemplation. He leaned back in the chair with a creak, crossing his arms and gazing far past some distant corner of the ceiling.</p><p>That all-too-familiar ripple skittered through Wes’s chest. His heart itched, rolled in dandelion puffs and powdered sugar and cotton candy. He drew a breath. Clicked his teeth together and held that breath square in his chest. His resolve always melted away faster than snowflakes on skin; he’d never been one to deny affection.</p><p>He closed the space between the sofa and desk in about three paces and leaned over Wilson, dropping his hands to his shoulders to squeeze the knots of muscle. Wilson lowered his head and sighed in appreciation.</p><p>“I’ve been trying to find where I put those old papers about setting up capacitors. I’ve really been wanting to try something out. I had the idea ever since the Constant, but of course the materials <em> here </em>are a little more friendly. Lemme find the diagrams. I spent half of yesterday banging out notes and the typewriter needs a new ribbon. I swear, Wes, I just put in a new one last week. They don’t make them like they used to.”</p><p>Wes continued squeezing Wilson’s shoulders in deep pulses as he talked. He never could follow what Wilson jabbered on about, and Wilson probably couldn’t track his own thoughts either. But hearing that excitement creep into his voice, raising it just a bit and making his words run together and fumble, was enough to hike up Wes’s blood pressure in the most pleasant way.</p><p>He aligned his thumbs alongside the vertebrae in Wilson’s neck and dug them in, massaging in slow, heavy circles. Wilson kept talking, with a brief interjection of “a little to the left, if you don’t mind,” and shuffled through the yellowed pages of one of his ratty old books.</p><p>As Wilson scoured the mess on his desk for the blueprints, he didn’t seem to notice Wes anymore. Wes might as well have been raptured clean out of the XYZ. Desperation oozed into his nerves. He moved Wilson’s hair away from his nape, brushing it to the side and pinning it there with his thumb before leaning forward to press a kiss on the soft skin. Wilson’s shoulders hitched in a quick up-and-down shrug as he kept leafing through another book.</p><p>Wes’s heart deflated like a balloon left in the sun all day. For crying out loud. He shouldn’t have been musing so much today, letting doubts and frustration and worry stack up like old cardboard boxes in the attic. Well, it was too late now. He was done for. </p><p>He wrapped his arms around Wilson’s skinny shoulders, pulled him close and buried his face in his neck, rubbing his nose into his hair as though he were ready to leave on business and wouldn’t be back for a month. He smelled of pine soap from his bath, fresh and soft and oh god Wes was really going to cry. </p><p>Wilson’s breath dislodged with an “oof.” Shifting his stack of papers to the other hand, he reached his free one back to rumple Wes’s hair. </p><p>“Are you okay, buddy?”</p><p>The tenderness in Wilson’s voice and fingers combing his hair, however casual, was all it took to chip away at the last of Wes’s resolve. He squished Wilson closer, almost tipping the chair backwards, and stamped a few more kisses down his neck until the collar kept him from going lower.</p><p>He gathered his will, as much as he could in both hands, before he cracked. He grasped the back of Wilson’s chair and scooted it, twisting it to the side on one rickety leg until Wilson faced him.</p><p>“Wil.” Wes circled three fingers in a “W” at his chest. “Can we talk?”</p><p>Wilson narrowed his eyes, parsing the signs. Then, his mouth compressing into an “o” of surprise, he nodded.</p><p>And because Wes had no idea how to delicately, politely, or tactfully bring up <em> this </em>kind of topic, his hands started churning out the words before his mind could catch up and reconsider.</p><p>“Do you like it when I’m close to you?”</p><p>Wilson stifled a laugh against his fist. Then, apologetically: “We live together. It would be some tough luck for me if I didn’t.”</p><p>Tough nuts indeed. The spike of frustration wedged deeper into Wes’s ribs. “Not <em> that. </em>I mean . . . “ His fingers fidgeted around the words. “Do you like it when we do things together? You know. Intimately?”</p><p>“Why not?” Wilson shrugged. “I managed well enough on my own, but it is nice to have someone around to chat with when things are dull. Or to have warm breakfasts with on the dreary mornings. Everything with you is a treat, Wes. I—”</p><p>“<em>Sex, </em>Wil,” Wes snapped, wrenching his fingers over the signs as though he were tracing a curse instead. “I’m talking about making love.”</p><p>Wilson blanched a nice off-white like overboiled cauliflower. Recovering, he laughed again, shakily, and waved the idea away the same way he’d shoo a fly from his sandwich.</p><p>“No need to be crass, for pete’s sake. Why’d you ask something so ridiculous? You’ve picked up too many habits from my dear sister.”</p><p>“Willow thinks it’s disgusting.”</p><p>“Willow thinks everything is disgusting.”</p><p>“You’re dodging it, Wil.” Wes’s hands formed the words softly, smoothing them slow and gentle like marmalade over fresh toast. “That’s worrying me.”</p><p>“I’m not <em> dodging </em>anything!” Wilson said, twisting the dodge into a parody. He leaned forward in the chair and popped his hands onto his knees for support. “I just thought it was a crazy thing to ask. Of course I—I’m fine with it. If I wasn’t, why would I do it so often with you?”</p><p>Wes scrunched his nose. Why would he do it so oft—oh. Okay. Sure. Yeah, sure. What? Wilson <em> had </em>to be sarcastic. Making one of his classic Wilson jokes that wasn’t even funny. He never could tell. </p><p>He stared down Wilson’s nose into his face, but the heavy brown eyes were earnest. Not so much as a tiny sparkle of mirth.</p><p>“I know your memory isn’t that bad yet. ‘Often’? Really, Wil? We’ve done it three times as long as we’ve known each other. And trust me, it’s not hard to keep track.”</p><p>Wilson tipped his head. A grin twisted up one half of his mouth. “You’re nuts, Wes. We’ve done it three times this week alone. Am I that forgettable? You’re gonna hurt my feelings.”</p><p>They’d done what how much how often?</p><p>“What are you talking about?” Wes spread his arms in disbelief. Had Wilson gotten a fat whiff of arsenic from one of those old green books? Had insomnia finally caught up with him? Had he drank sour milk again? Whacked his head on the pantry shelf?</p><p>Wilson folded his arms across his chest. His eyebrows lowered, piling trenches between them.</p><p>“‘Three times since we’ve known each other’,” he muttered. “I swear on Galileo’s grave. What’s in your noggin, Wessie? Helium? What do you think we did the day before yesterday? On the couch while we were listening to <em> The Chase and Sanborn Hour</em>?”</p><p>Wes’s hands shot up to retort, then froze. </p><p>Wait a minute.</p><p>Oh. </p><p>
  <em> Oh.  </em>
</p><p>Well. Wasn’t this a marvelous kettle of fish soup, if the kettle was a situation and the fish soup was a stunning example of miscommunication.</p><p>“Wil. Is <em>t</em><em>hat </em>your idea of making love? Sitting on my lap and halfway falling asleep while I’m kissing you and an inch away from having to stitch up my coveralls again because you’re right there yet still so far away and it’s all I can stand?”</p><p>Wilson averted his gaze. Under the patch of red, veins showed up clear as a map on his cheeks.</p><p>“I . . . I certainly don’t see why it wouldn’t be all that. Do you think I’d sit on just anyone and leave my buttons to be their business?”</p><p>“Not at all! I just meant . . . “ Wes paused to stuff his fingers into his hair. Boy, this was flustering <em> him. </em>“That’s . . . well, I always assumed that’s, well, warming up. Getting into the mood. And then to have it build up each time, only for you to wander off or fall asleep . . . . “ His hands lowered.</p><p>Wilson sat like a rock. Somehow, he looked smaller than usual, just a wisp in a wrinkly oversized waistcoat, a dandelion in a strong wind, and all at once Wes felt like scum scraped off a hot swamp. Wilson rubbed at his rolled-up sleeve.</p><p>“I, um, didn’t know that.” He kept his eyes on his lap. “I thought that since you got a hold of me so much, it was enough to keep things well between us—” </p><p>He broke off. Fast. As if he realized he’d cracked open the proverbial can of worms and dumped half of them into his lap before he could clamp it shut again. He blew a long breath into his cheeks and let it out in a soft whoosh. He glanced up at Wes with his lopsided smile, placating and almost pleading. </p><p>Suddenly, all Wes wanted to do was crush him in the tightest embrace he’d ever been in.</p><p>“What was that, Wil?”</p><p>“A sigh, I suppose.”</p><p>Wes closed his eyes. Think calm thoughts. Count to ten. </p><p>One. </p><p>“You know what I mean.”</p><p>Two. </p><p>“That thing you said.”</p><p>Three. </p><p>“About it being enough to keep things well between us?”</p><p>Wilson looked like a rabbit caught in a snare. Wes was struck by the distinct feeling that he might puke and didn’t even know <em> why. </em>He’d seen that look before. On the Constant. Scraping for food, half-crazed, staring down at a rabbit tangled in the trap. Struggling, squeaking, writhing, eyes so wide that white encircled the big brown dewdrops; nausea plummeting in his stomach as he raised a rock.</p><p>Four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten—</p><p>“Wilson, please talk to me.”</p><p>Wilson crossed his arms over his chest again as if to protect it and reclined in the chair. He pulled his lip between his teeth, chewing, thinking who-knows-what. </p><p>An hour must have passed before he spoke, maybe two, and Wes felt like he was absolutely pickling in every stress hormone a body can flood out and wished he had <em> never </em>mentioned anything.</p><p>“It hasn’t been enough, has it?”</p><p>The puke feeling shot up a little higher in Wes’s throat. He’d braced himself for a lot of things that Wilson could say. That was not one of them.</p><p>“What do you mean, ‘not enough’? I can’t answer if I don’t know what you’re talking about!”</p><p>“You know plenty.” </p><p>He was <em> sulking. </em> Wes wished the couch wasn’t so far away so he could sink into it, because his knees were a few picoseconds away from buckling like dry pasta.</p><p>“Start from the beginning, Wil. Okay? Can you please do that?”</p><p>“What beginning?” Exasperated, Wilson splayed his hands. “Which one, Wes? The one where we met and I promised myself I wouldn’t feel a thing for another soul again or the one where I fell in love and promised myself I’d shut my mouth on anything to keep from losing you?”</p><p>The puke turned into a rock, a chestnut, or maybe a cactus in Wes’s throat. </p><p>“I meant the beginning of this conversation, but that second one works too.”</p><p>Wilson met Wes’s gaze and it was sharp as a butcher knife, a clash, slicing, cutting, daring, and just as fast, he ducked his head. Defeated. </p><p>“I guess I thought everything was . . . okay. The way it was. I thought this time it was going to work out. It wasn’t going to be the way it was when I was in university. I thought I learned my lesson.” His voice wobbled and he sounded like a ten-year-old. “I was going to give you what you needed. But I still haven’t done that, have I?”</p><p>Wes bent to his knees in front of Wilson, and not even the spark of pain when he hit the floor slowed him from grabbing for Wilson’s face. He pressed his hands against Wilson’s cheeks, thumbs at his temples, and lifted his head. Just as the orange lamplight began to warm his face, Wilson stubbornly shut his eyes. That didn’t stop the light from dazzling the water that stuck in his lashes.</p><p>Wes swallowed and the spit just globbed up like library paste. He let go of Wilson’s face, letting his fingers slide down his jaw, the half-inch whiskers coarse and prickly and crinkling under his fingertips.</p><p>“You never told me what happened in university. Wil . . . “ He touched Wilson’s knee. Once, then again, more insistently. Wilson cracked his eyes open just enough to listen. </p><p>“Please just tell me how I can help. I don’t want to be afraid of what you’re thinking. But all I can infer right now is that you’ve let me believe some things that aren’t true.”</p><p>As soon as Wes finished, Wilson shut his eyes again. The stubborn note crept into his voice. “You make it sound like I’m leading you on.”</p><p>“I didn’t say that, Wil—” But it was wasting effort to speak when Wilson refused to look.</p><p>“I always just assumed that . . . I mean, I thought you wanted it. That. You know? And that if we didn’t do it, you wouldn’t . . . well, wouldn’t want me, I suppose.”</p><p>His words began to melt together, slurring in a mumble, the tail-end of one blurring into the next like newspaper ink under a stain of morning coffee.</p><p>“Or that’s how I remember it. Back when—” Wilson winced as if in the shadow of an angry raised hand. “I was young and foolish, so you can’t really blame me. Admiration, or maybe desperation, can make someone have terrible judgment. I didn’t have names for feelings. I didn’t <em> know </em>what being lonesome would do to my head.”</p><p>Wes’s breath stuck, and he was nigh-near suffocating. He closed his hand over Wilson’s knee and squeezed. Hard. </p><p>“I thought I loved someone. Maybe I did. I still don’t know.” The words were rushing out like water spewing from a split pipe and Wes could only stare at the rising flood helplessly. </p><p>“He told me I didn’t because I didn’t show it. ‘You’re cold, Wilson. You’re about as welcoming as a rock. Haven’t you ever hugged anyone in your life?’ And I wanted to, but it was too <em> tight </em>and I couldn’t breathe and I never did like it. ‘Oh, don’t lie and say you love me, Wilson. You know you don’t.’ And I always swore I did, sometimes until I cried onto my homework, and I was young and afraid to be alone so I begged to know how I could prove I did.”</p><p>Wes’s heart thudded against that blade of bone that locked his ribs together and he was starting to wonder if it couldn’t crack under the weight. Wilson was silly. He was a weird little something, a funny fellow. A caricature. He wasn’t supposed to talk like <em> this.  </em></p><p>“And it was never enough. I spent meal allowance on apology gifts. I stayed awake for two days in a row to finish writing a paper that I was late on because—” He snuffled. “Nothing I did was enough until I realized I had to do everything <em> his </em>way. My way wasn’t good enough. After I gave into his way, everything was pure divine peachy. And then . . . “</p><p>His voice went dreamy. Wistful, soft and somehow sweet. </p><p>“I came back to the dormitory after a nine-at-night class, and unlocked the door to find the chemistry student from across the hall drooling on <em> my </em> pillow and her stockings thrown onto my desk. Of course, I was told that he never thought I was <em> serious</em>. ‘You’re too awkward, Wilson. You killed the mood dead as a doornail every time. It was like trying to put a screw through solid concrete. If it’d been easier, then maybe, but . . . ‘ And if I hadn’t been so mad, I think it might’ve broken my heart, which sounds very silly to say out loud. Forget you heard that.”</p><p>Wes wanted nothing more in the entire universe than to tell Wilson he loved him. A lot. So much. More than anything, really. More than anything he could dream of and so much that it somehow felt too big. His hands were too heavy. </p><p>“I wanted it to be different with you. I tried, Wes.” And that crooked smile came back, tentative, as if he had just remembered Wes was kneeling in front of him and heard everything he’d said. </p><p>Wes couldn’t tell if he was about to cry or barf. Wilson really <em> was </em> the most stupid person on the planet.</p><p>“You should have told me, Wil.” His fingers wavered. “You never had to play along with anything for me. You really were just playing dumb all along, weren’t you? You were never clueless. You were just . . . oh, Wil.”</p><p>Wilson’s shoulders sank. “I guess. I wanted to make you happy. And I thought it’d been enough to get by without questions, but I guess you noticed, huh?”</p><p>“Oh, Wil.” The knot in Wes’s throat was going to make his skull split right down the middle. Helplessly, he reached for Wilson’s hands, then withdrew faster than he would have from a hot stove.</p><p>“Is it—can I—could I hold you?”</p><p>He didn’t consider it deeply when he asked. But that one question—clipped, fast, insignificant—kicked out the last crumbling column. Wilson’s mouth went into a tight line, bent downwards, and his eyes scrunched shut. He lowered his head, and wordlessly nodded in a quick jerk. </p><p>Wes folded his arms around him and hauled him forward, squeezing him as though he could press out every fear and troubling memory he had in all his five-foot-two, ninety-five pounds of existence. He pushed Wilson’s nose into his shoulder. His trembly breath was hot and humid against his sleeve.</p><p>Boy, he had some nerve calling Wilson stupid. Because he himself was venturing into uncharted backside-of-a-mule territory. He was an undiluted idiot. </p><p>Had he really <em> never </em>thought to ask? Had he always just assumed? Had he thought, throughout the last five years, that he knew Wilson inside and out well enough to never bother asking how he felt? Surely not, right? Surely . . . .</p><p>Yeah.</p><p>They were both stubborn. The unstoppable force and the immovable object. Opposite poles on the magnet. East and Wes. Yet by some paradox, they needed to be together. </p><p>By golly, he was never going to assume anything again, that was for sure.</p><p>He patted Wilson’s back in a couple of taps. Wilson leaned back, slow, peeling away with all the reluctance of a tick tugged out of a swampy cut of thigh fresh from a woodland hike. Wes steadied him on the chair, then drew his hands back.</p><p>“I love you, Wilson.” He didn’t even intend to say that part first. It was supposed to be grave, tremulous, spoken after a long spiel, but it just shot out, impulsive, held in too long already. </p><p>Wilson watched his hands. He looked sleepy. For once, Wes didn’t mind.</p><p>“I love you more than anything. I absolutely promise that. Just the way you are. There’s no strings. No ‘or-else’s. I’ve never wanted you to do anything that hurts you. You’re all I want. If I could never touch you again it wouldn’t change the way I love you. The ways I feel for you. I need only you.”</p><p>Wilson’s eyes were half-shut, heavy, pencil-lined with red and the bags like bruises weighing underneath. His mouth was slack. He nodded in a slow up-and-down, as if in a daydream.</p><p>“Wilson.”</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>“I love you.” </p><p>“I know.”</p><p>“You know I never wanted to push you farther than you wanted to go . . . right?”</p><p>“I know, Wes.” </p><p>“Wilson—”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>And he was able to search Wilson’s tired eyes for only a second before a pang stung his heart, like he’d swallowed a too-big bite of dry biscuit and it was scraping and scratching its way down and the corners were grazing a few organs along the way. </p><p>“Is it okay if I kiss you?”</p><p>The question fell like a pot onto tile. And, after a stifling moment of consideration, Wilson only extended his hands. </p><p>It was an invitation—nonverbal, Wilsonesque in its brusqueness—but an invitation. </p><p>Wes’s head felt twenty pounds lighter when he breathed. His hands gravitated to Wilson’s face before he even realized he’d moved to accept. He felt as though he were reaching through molasses, slow, lost in a daze. </p><p>It was all the same as it’d ever been. They had kissed a thousand times before. Maybe a million. </p><p>The same softness of skin beneath his fingers as he skimmed his hands down Wilson’s cheeks. The same tingle of anticipation, his mouth flooding and his eyes sinking shut, as he guided Wilson’s chin forward. The same puff of breath hitting his lips and sending a delicious chill sailing down his back and arms. The same warmth of their lips brushing; chapped, dry, only touching at first—and only touching.</p><p>It was different. Foreheads together. Nose against cheek. Only breathing and feeling. No insistent deepening, no desperation. It was barely a kiss. Wasn’t one at all compared to what they’d done before. But somehow, deep in his core, Wes knew that in all of five years, they had never, ever been this close. </p><p>He moved his hand. Not to wrap his fist in Wilson’s hair to tug him in deeper, not to push his head forward. Not even to clutch his shoulder. </p><p>He brought his hand between them, and rested the back of it feather-light against Wilson’s chest. Not to grab. Not to wrestle with his shirt. Just so Wilson could feel the weight of his words without having to open his eyes.</p><p>“I love you.” It wasn’t <em> real </em>words. No dictionary would illustrate the signs the way he said it in that moment. It was gentle, traced over Wilson’s chest, spelling out everything in Wes’s entire soul in a way that nobody besides Wilson could ever understand. </p><p>Wilson breathed a quiet little sigh. Relief took away even more weight than it added. Wes knew he understood.</p><p>Drowsily, Wilson draped his arms over Wes’s shoulders, joints cracking close to Wes’s ears. He felt Wilson’s smile curve against his lips. Smiling through a kiss. And Wes understood too. </p><p>It was better than anything he could’ve said aloud. Wes didn’t need anything more than this.<strong><br/>
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